"Isn't the object always absent?1
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...3
You have gone (which I lament), you are here (since I am adressing you)."
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Barthes explains things I have thought so much more eloquently than I ever could.7
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The amorous subject: "I want you to know that I am hiding something from you", wearing dark glasses so that the other will not see they have been crying, but since they do not normally wear dark glasses, they are really there to provoke the other to ask if they are okay. 9
The loved object: "I love you too" 10
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The "loved object" is never with the "amorous subject", even when they are ("You said you live with me now, didn't you? Then why doesn't it feel that way?")15
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As the amorous subject, I have endlessly, exhaustively effused infinite, unconditional love from every pore. For years. 17
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You've been away for years because you are the loved object that is always absent.19
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I've been alone. 21
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Love as attachment: infants whose caregivers are warm and responsive tend to form secure attachments with their caregivers are likely to find it relitively easy to form close bonds with others as adults, have trusting relationships and rarely fear abandonment. 25
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(This is my current boyfriend)
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If caregivers are cold and non-responsive, infants will form avoidant attacments, and as adults, find it difficult to form close relationships, and describe their romantic relationships as lacking trust and intimacy. 30
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(This is me)
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If caregivers have an ambivalent, erratic parenting style, infants will form an anxious/ambivalent attachment, and as adults will tend to have a preoccupation with love, expectation of rejection, and describe romantic relationships as volatile and marked by jealousy.35
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(This is every other boy I've ever been with) 37
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As the loved object in my current relationship, I've often felt fairly apathetic about "us". "Agony and ecstacy of intense emotion" replaced by security/boredom.43
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The night I met him, he was so enigmatic. He moved like liquid. He half-hid behind straightened, glossy, mannicured hair. His legs were narrow as a model's and a million miles long, the space between his thighs when he stood with his knees together, that upside down triangle, made my entire cognitive ability dissolve (I was quiet - nothing could be further out of character). ("The first time I saw you? I guess I thought you were hot, like me"). 45
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(2 AM) 49
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"I'm home now... Is it alright if I come over?"51
"No"52
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't"53
"One: I'm sleeping. Two: I'm in a bad mood with Mike and I'm in my bed - I don't know if I trust myself"54
"I'm about to walk out the door... Any objections?"55
"Don't come over"56
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I am still unsure what made me let him in when he knocked on my window. The best explaination I can muster is, it reminded me of that loved object when I was fourteen, freezing cold and drenched in sweat from the long bike ride to my house, crouching down by my window ("But of course no one was home...". 59
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That was the night I fell in love with him. He risked heartbreak revealing himself to me there in the darkness of my bedroom, whispering low, "I would be a better boyfriend than him, I would appreciate you so much more, I would look forward to every touch..."61
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"The most selfish part of me wants both of you"63
"The most selfish part of me just wants you..." 64
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An interesting observation I've made is that, when I'm contemplating a loved object, I tend to internally refer to them as you, but when I am writing about an amorous subject, I tend to internally refer to them as him, unless I am deliberately doing otherwise (to convince myself that an amorous subject is my loved object, or vice versa). 70
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I needed you, my boyfriend far away and uncontactable on a business trip, my best friend suddenly and unexpectedly glassed in front of me, having to spend all night being the tough, together one, needing to debrief, to be looked after myself, having spent all night looking after her (this is not to say I resent her - she's everything). I needed you and you let me down, suddenly and unexpectedly. I fucking needed you. 73
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Though I have been let down by you before, this time somehow, I feel my tolerance threshold has been breached. I am experiancing a sudden letting go of you, the person I've loved forever (they suddenly seem to hold no meaning). It actually hurts like hell, not because I am scared of losing you (you were always lost - absent), but because all I have known for as long as I can clearly remember is that infinite love I had to give. 76
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I suddenly feel like what really matters is the people who genuinely love me, the ones who treat me the way I deserve to be treated, rather than the ones who make my heart feel it will explode (this is not actually a negative sensation, it's beautiful) but who are erratic, unreliable. 78
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This idea that consistency is more important than enigma makes me feel old. 80
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References 84
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Ronald Barthes, A Lover's Discourse, 197886
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La Dispute, Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair, 200888
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Cindy Hazen & Phillip Shaver: Theory of Love as Attachment 91
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